Hilda Samsing

Hilda Samsing was born in Christiana, Norway, in 1870. She immigrated to Australia with her family in 1881, living first in South Australia and then in Victoria.

Hilda was 45 when she enlisted in the AIF on 1 October 1914. She had trained as a nurse at Melbourne Hospital, with an additional year at the Women’s Hospital. When she enlisted, she had 13 years’ experience and had been matron at Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Hospital and at the private Thomas FitzGerald Hospital.

She embarked on the HMAT Benalla with the 8th Infantry Battalion for the Middle East, one of the first 25 nurses in the first convoy. Arriving in Egypt in December 1914, she nursed first at the hospital at Mena and then at Heliopolis before transferring to the hospital ships. She joined other Australian nurses on the Gascon between June and December 1915, evacuating the most seriously ill and wounded from Gallipoli.

Hilda served mainly in France during 1916. She suffered badly from bronchitis during the harsh winter of 1916–17, precipitating her transfer to England in 1917 to recover and then return to nursing. Following a debilitating injury to her left arm, in 1918 she was discharged as ‘medically unfit for active service’ and returned to Australia by year’s end.

Back in her adopted homeland, Hilda embarked on a new venture. She took out the lease on the tired Mount Buffalo Ski Chalet in the Victorian High Country, renovating the building and making a successful business. The mountain venture likely reminded her of her Norwegian roots. Seeing her success, the Victorian Railways forced her out of the lease, so Hilda sought to build a rival chalet on nearby Mount Feathertop for the increasingly popular activity of skiing. At a time when the Railways was driving domestic tourism in the state, it again foiled her plans and took over that lease too. For a time, she managed a hostel at Mount Feathertop.

Hilda Samsing died at Mount Strickland, Victoria, in 1957, aged 87.